Saab 96/Miata build

[Stein]

You can see how much the fenders were flared to fit, about 3" in the front and 4" in the back. To maintain the body style line I sectioned and re-bent the factory panel, welded in filler pieces and then smoothed. It was a ton of work but I wanted the body modifications to flow with the factory lines.

[Luke]

I'd recommend "Southern Polyurathanes" epoxy. Its a small company in Georgia, but they make great products that are renowned in the Hot Rod/Restoration world. They also are pretty reasonable. I used them on my 99 and spray and hold up nicely. Just call up and order, their catalog is pretty small, but I used the epoxy, primer and high build stuff.

I also used this on the historic rally car, It has held up quite well.

[Stein]

Jut got home from the body shop a bit ago. It went extremely well although it took every minute that we had this weekend.

Got there about 4:30 on Friday. Unloaded and started masking to paint the interior to paint matte black.



Painting the interior.



Interior done. Also painted all of the trim pieces that are going onto the car the same matte black.



A friend scuffing before sealer.



Panels and doors sealed.



Masked off the interior to seal the car while the panels are base/clear coated.



Panels done. They came out nice.







Next another friend painted the car.



Car done.





A few shots outside. Looks lighter in the outdoor pics than it really is.







Loaded up and got home about 8:30 Sunday night.

[Crazyswede]

Personal opinion below

why did you choose black for the wheel wells and interior? I personally like white or grey for those areas...makes the interior easier to see around and feels less claustrophic. Also easier to see problems in the wheel wells and engine bay.


Paint does look very good. Your method of flaring the fenders is impressive

[Jordan]

Umph....!

[SwedeSport]

Love this! Keep it up!

[Stein]

why did you choose black for the wheel wells and interior? I personally like white or grey for those areas...makes the interior easier to see around and feels less claustrophic. Also easier to see problems in the wheel wells and engine bay.

The dash that I fabricated is also black, the seats are black, the Miata carpet which will drop in is black, door panels and panels behind the seats are black...

See where I'm going with this?

In addition, the matte black will match with the matte black black grille, thingy on the trunk, door handles. I'm still going to matte the raised section of the hood. It is to cut sunlight glare on the track.

The engine bay was more to show off the engine/turbo swap. The only thing I could have done that didn't actually "help" is left the grey epoxy in the fender wells.

[Stein]

Getting it together.

Turbo manifold and downpipe fabricated. Well, the downpipe is just tacked. Ran out of argon for my TIG.



Got the radiator, fans, intercooler mounted.

[Crazyswede]

Looking good.

[Stein]

Turbo manifold created from scratch, intercooler and cold air intake complete. Filter is between the SAAB inner and old Miata inner fender so the only air that it can possibly draw is outside air.

[gmreider]

Is that a SAAB type Hooter valve (blow off ) I see in the intake stream? Where did you vent the outlet back to?
Also I like the small breather filter coming off the cam cover area. Very nice application of details in design.
That car is going to be scary fast when you are done!!

[Jordan]

[Geoff]

This is a nice clean conversion. Looks very nice!

96 longnose + proper weight distribution + turbo + RWD =

[Stein]

Is that a SAAB type Hooter valve (blow off ) I see in the intake stream? Where did you vent the outlet back to?

I will be running this on Megasquirt so it is MAP based, not MAF so I can run the BOV VTA without the lean surge that affects some other cars. The unit is a standard Bosch BOV that is used in multiple European applications. Not sure where this one came from.

Got the body parts buffed this Saturday and started assembly. Teaser pic-taken with a potato. Can't wait to get it on the ground.



One fail on this swap has reared it's head. Can't remove (or install) the rear tire with the fender in place. I was able to remove the one upper control arm bolt, roll the rotor back and get the tire in. This will probably become the SOP for tire swaps. One bolt, doesn't mess with alignment. Oh, well.

[Stein]

I need to clear the shop so that we can get the guy who painted the SAAB's K5 Blazer in this coming weekend to swap a couple axles so it needed to be driveable. Got the dash done.





Got it on the ground. It looks so small after staring at it on jackstands for two years. Looks soooo much better at normal ride height.





Went to triumphantly drive it out of the shop under it's own power for the first time in 30 years and...the slave cylinder is bad. Not surprising as the last four Miatas that I have built or worked on had a bad slave. This one bled fine but now there's no pedal. Wife and I bled it again, had pedal for a minute and bad again so I'll pick one up tomorrow.

Also, one of the Miata guys in Sweden on Miataturbo.net just scored me rear tail lights and backup lights off of tradera, which is Sweden's Ebay. They are really hard to find in the states in good condition but easier in the motherland! Price with shipping should still be less than finding them here.

Hope to see them in a couple of weeks! I love teh interwebz.